WASHINGTON: Republicans aggressively defended law enforcement on the third night of their convention, as the nation faced renewed tensions following the police shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man in Wisconsin that sparked protests in a state that could decide the fall election.
Vice President Mike Pence, the evening's featured speaker, seized on the national reckoning over racial injustice to argue that Democratic leaders are allowing lawlessness to prevail in cities from coast to coast. He and others described cities wracked by violence, though protests in most locations have been largely peaceful.
“The American people know we don’t have to choose between supporting law enforcement and standing with African American neighbors to improve the quality of life in our cities and towns,” he said in remarks released before his appearance. He also assailed Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden for saying there is an “implicit bias” against minorities and “systemic racism” in the U.S.
“The hard truth is ... you won’t be safe in Joe Biden’s America,” Pence said.
Meanwhile, the steady image Republicans were aiming to portray of President Donald Trump at the convention was running into a turbulent outside reality: the police shooting of Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, the potentially catastrophic hurricane bearing down on the Gulf Coast, wildfires that have ravaged huge areas of California and the still-raging coronavirus pandemic that is killing more than 1,000 Americans a day.
The historic convergence of health, economic, environmental and social emergencies is only increasing the pressure on Trump, as he looks to reshape the contours of his lagging campaign against former Vice President Biden with Election Day just 10 weeks off and early voting beginning much sooner.
While Trump has issued tweets about the hurricane, few convention speakers addressed it or the wildfires. The convention lineup also included speakers who have been at odds with the Black Lives Matter movement, including a St. Louis couple who brandished guns and the Kentucky attorney general who has not yet filed charges in the death of a woman killed by police.
But the program Wednesday night was — as the president often says of Biden — low energy, with no major headline speaker beside the vice president and few boldface names. And it lacked some of the production elements that had made previous nights memorable, including slickly produced videos and surprise announcements, such as an unexpected presidential pardon and a citizenship ceremony.
Not that the proceedings lacked tough talk.
“From Seattle and Portland to Washington and New York, Democrat-run cities across this country are being overrun by violent mobs,” contended South Dakota Gov Kristi Noem. “People that can afford to flee have fled. But the people that can’t — good, hard-working Americans —are left to fend for themselves.”
Adding another controversial element, late Wednesday the NBA postponed three playoff games after the Milwaukee Bucks refused to take the court for their game following the shooting of Blake. The WNBA and Milwaukee Brewers quickly followed suit with their Wednesday games.
That was a few hours before Pence was to speak from Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, where an 1814 battle inspired the National Anthem. Trump has strongly criticized athletes who kneel rather than stand during the anthem in protest of racial injustice.
Adding to the sense of convention uncertainty, another speaker was abruptly pulled from the lineup. The Trump campaign confirmed that Robert Unanue, the president and CEO of Goya Foods, would not be speaking Wednesday night, citing a “logistical problem.” Unanue’s appearance at the White House earlier this month and his praise of Trump sparked a boycott movement of his company’s products.
Organizers on Tuesday had pulled another featured speaker, “Angel Mom” Mary Ann Mendoza after she directed her Twitter followers to a series of anti-Semitic, conspiratorial messages hours before her pre-recorded segment was to air.
Wednesday night's lineup was expected to include Clarence Henderson, who participated in the 1960 Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth lunch counter sit-ins for what Trump's team said would be a discussion of “peaceful protest" and the president's record of trying to help Black Americans.
“These achievements demonstrate that Donald Trump truly cares about black lives," Henderson was to say. "His policies show his heart. He has done more for black Americans in four years than Joe Biden has done in 50.”
Convention speakers were also reinforcing Trump’s law-and-order message, warning that electing Biden would lead to violence in American cities spilling into the suburbs, a message with racist undertones. Trump on Wednesday tweeted about sending federal agents to Kenosha to help quell unrest, and the Justice Department said it was sending in the FBI and federal marshals.
Trump's campaign believes his aggressive response will help him with suburban women voters who may be concerned by the protests — though it may only deepen his deficit with Black voters.
Michael McHale, the president of the National Association of Police Organizations, told the convention, “The violence and bloodshed we are seeing in these and other cities isn’t happening by chance. It’s the direct result of refusing to allow law enforcement to protect our communities. Joe Biden has turned his candidacy over to the far-left, anti-law enforcement radicals."
And Burgess Owens, a former NFL player now running for Congress in Utah, declared, “This November, we stand at a crossroads. Mobs torch our cities while popular members of Congress promote the same socialism that my father fought against in World War II.”
While the Democrats’ convention last week included musical performances and celebrity guests, Trump’s on Wednesday become little more than a series of speeches, delivered one after the next.
The night included remarks from the president’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, as well as several administration officials including departing Counselor Kellyanne Conway, the manager of Trump’s 2016 general election campaign, and press secretary Kayleigh McEnany.
“This is the man I know and the president we need," said Conway, a week before she is to leave the White House. "He picks the toughest fights and tackles the most complex problems. He has stood by me, and he will stand up for you.”
GOP convention defends police as racial tension rises anew
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GOP convention defends police as racial tension rises anew
- The historic convergence of health, economic, environmental and social emergencies is only increasing the pressure on Trump
France returns ancient artifacts to Ethiopia
- The artifacts currently stored at the French Embassy in Addis Ababa will be delivered to the Ethiopian Heritage Directorate on Tuesday
ADDIS ABABA: France on Saturday began the return of some 3,500 archeolo-gical artifacts to Ethiopia, which Paris held since the 1980s for study.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot handed over two prehistoric stone axes, bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia’s Tourism Minister Selamawit Kassa during a visit to the National Museum in Addis Ababa.
The tools are “samples of nearly 3,500 artifacts from the excavations carried out on the Melka Kunture site,” a cluster of prehistoric sites south of the capital excavated under the direction of a late French researcher, Barrot said.
France and Ethiopia hold a longstanding bilateral agreement to cooperate in archeology and paleontology.
The artifacts stored at the French Embassy in Addis Ababa will be delivered to the Ethiopian Heritage Directorate on Tuesday.
“This is a handover, not a restitution, in that these objects have never been part of French public collections,” said Laurent Serrano, culture adviser at the French Embassy.
“These artifacts, which date back between 1 and 2 million years, were found during excavations carried out over several decades at a site near the Ethiopian capital,” he added.
Concern grows over rise in fatal migrant shipwrecks in Greece
- UNHCR representative: ‘Counting lives lost at sea cannot become a norm’
ATHENS: The UN refugee agency has voiced concern at a rise in deaths of migrants trying to reach Greece by sea in small boats from Turkiye, following two fatal shipwrecks this week.
The UNHCR said in a statement Friday that 17 people have died in such accidents this month, while the total so far this year is at least 45 deaths.
Some 56,000 people have illegally entered Greece since Jan. 1, mostly by sea. That’s a five-year high, and the number has already exceeded government estimates of some 50,000 arrivals by the year’s end in October.
The UNHCR representative in Greece, Maria Clara Martin, said the migrant deaths “highlight the urgent need for long-term responses and safer and credible alternatives” for people fleeing conflict, persecution, violence, or human rights violations.
“Counting lives lost at sea cannot become a norm — we should not get used to it,” she said.
The UN agency said that this week’s two fatal accidents off the eastern Aegean Sea island of Samos, which is close to the Turkish coast, saw a mother lose three of her children, while another survivor lost his wife and daughter.
Greek authorities have attributed this year’s rise in migrant arrivals to conflicts in the Middle East.
While there’s been a surge in people attempting the long and dangerous Mediterranean Sea crossing from Libya to the southern Greek island of Crete, most migrants pay smuggling gangs to ferry them from Turkiye to the eastern Aegean islands.
On Friday, the Greek coast guard said it arrested a 17-year-old Turkish youth on suspicion of having landed 16 migrants — including three children — on the eastern island of Chios.
Tunisia and Libya have become vital departure points for migrants, often from other African countries, who risk perilous Mediterranean Sea journeys in the hopes of reaching better lives in Europe.
Each year, tens of thousands of people attempt to make the crossing. Italy, whose Lampedusa island is only 150 km from Tunisia, is often their first port of call.
In the latest incident reported on Friday, two unidentified bodies were recovered off Tunisia’s eastern coast after a migrant boat capsized, with one person still missing and 28 rescued.
The boat had set sail from Teboulba, a coastal town some 180 km south of Tunis.
In late October, the bodies of 15 people believed to be migrants were recovered by authorities in Monastir, eastern Tunisia.
And in late September, 36 would-be migrants — mainly Tunisians — were rescued off Bizerte in northern Tunisia.
Since Jan. 1, at least 103 makeshift boats have capsized, and 341 bodies have been recovered off Tunisia’s coast, according to the Interior Ministry.
Kenyan, Ugandan presidents to mediate Ethiopia-Somalia dispute
- Somaliland has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991
NAIROBI: Kenya’s President William Ruto said on Saturday he and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni would help mediate a dispute between Ethiopia and Somalia, threatening the region’s stability.
Landlocked Ethiopia, which has thousands of troops in Somalia to fight Al-Qaeda-linked insurgents, has fallen out with the Mogadishu government over its plans to build a port in the breakaway region of Somaliland in exchange for possible recognition of its sovereignty.
Somaliland has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991.
The spat has drawn Somalia closer to Egypt, which has quarreled with Ethiopia for years over Addis Ababa’s construction of a vast hydro dam on the Nile River, and Eritrea, another of Ethiopia’s foes.
Somaliland has struggled to gain international recognition despite governing itself and enjoying comparative peace and stability since declaring independence in 1991.
“Because the security of Somalia ... contributes significantly to the stability of our region, and the environment for investors, business people, and entrepreneurs to thrive,” he told a news conference.
Several attempts to resolve the feud in Ankara, Turkiye, failed to make a breakthrough.
Ethiopia’s government and foreign affairs spokespeople did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Somalia’s foreign minister could not immediately be reached by Reuters.
The government of Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubbaland state said earlier it was suspending relations and cooperation with the federal government in Mogadishu following a dispute over regional elections.
Jubbaland, which borders Kenya and Ethiopia and is one of Somalia’s five semi-autonomous states, reelected regional president Ahmed Mohammed Islam Madobe for a third term in elections on Monday.
However, the national government based in Mogadishu, led by President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, opposed the election, saying it was held without federal involvement.
Russian missile strike on central Ukraine kills 4: Zelensky
- More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child
- “A rescue operation is currently underway in the Dnipro region,” Zelensky said
KYIV: A Russian missile strike on a town in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region on Saturday killed at least four people, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.
More than a dozen others were wounded, including a child, while a residential building and shop were damaged, according to officials.
“A rescue operation is currently underway in the Dnipro region after the missile strike. As of now, it is known that four people were killed,” Zelensky said in his evening address.
Tsarychanka is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) north of the region’s capital Dnipro.
The town had a population of around 7,000 people before the war.
The nearly three-year conflict has seen a sharp escalation in recent days, with Moscow pummelling Ukrainian towns and cities ahead of the winter.
Russia launched more than a hundred drones at Ukraine on Friday, a day after knocking out power to more than a million people with strikes on energy infrastructure.
Zelensky says NATO offer for Ukraine-controlled territory could end ‘hot stage’ of war
- “You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” the Ukrainian president said
- “So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize the occupied territory as territory of Russia”
KYIV: An offer of NATO membership to territory under Kyiv’s control would end “the hot stage of the war” in Ukraine, but any proposal to join the military alliance should be extended to all parts of the country that fall under internationally recognized borders, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a broadcast interview.
Zelensky’s remarks on Friday signaled a possible way forward to the difficult path Ukraine faces to future NATO membership. At their summit in Washington in July, the 32 members declared Ukraine on an “irreversible” path to membership. However, one obstacle to moving forward has been the view that Ukraine’s borders would need to be clearly demarcated before it could join so that there can be no mistaking where the alliance’s pact of mutual defense would come into effect.
“You can’t give an invitation to just one part of a country,” the Ukrainian president said in an excerpt of the interview with Sky News, dubbed by the UK broadcaster. “Why? Because thus you would recognize that Ukraine is only that territory of Ukraine and the other one is Russia.”
Under the Ukrainian constitution, Ukraine cannot recognize territory occupied by Russia as Russian.
“So legally, by law, we have no right to recognize the occupied territory as territory of Russia,” he said.
Since the start of the war in 2022, Russia has been expending huge amounts of weaponry and human life to make small-but-steady territorial gains to the nearly one-fifth of Ukraine it already controls in east and southern Ukraine.
“If we want to stop the hot stage of the war, we should take under the NATO umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control. That’s what we need to do, fast. And then Ukraine can get back the other part of its territory diplomatically,” he said.
An invitation for Ukraine to join NATO is one key point of Zelensky’s “victory plan”, which he presented to Western allies and the Ukrainian people in October. The plan is seen as a way for Ukraine to strengthen its hand in any negotiations with Moscow.
Earlier this week, NATO’s new Secretary General Mark Rutte said that the alliance “needs to go further” to support Ukraine in its fight against a Russian invasion. Military aid to Kyiv and steps toward ending the war are expected to be high on the agenda when NATO members’ foreign ministers meet in Brussels for a two-day gathering starting on December 3.
However, any decision for Ukraine to join the military alliance would require a lengthier process and the agreement of all member states.
There is also uncertainty as to the foreign policy stance of President-elect Donald Trump. While Trump vowed on the campaign trail to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in a single day, he has not publicly discussed how this could happen. Trump also announced Wednesday that Keith Kellogg, an 80-year-old, highly decorated retired three-star general, would serve as his special envoy for Ukraine and Russia.
In April, Kellog wrote that “bringing the Russia-Ukraine war to a close will require strong, America First leadership to deliver a peace deal and immediately end the hostilities between the two warring parties.”
Meanwhile, during his only campaign debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump twice refused to directly answer a question about whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war — raising concerns that Kyiv could be forced to accept unfavorable terms in any negotiations.
Zelensky’s statement comes as Ukraine faces increasing pressure along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) frontline. In its latest report, the Washington-based think tank the Institute for the Study of War said Saturday that Russian forces had recently advanced near Kupiansk, in Toretsk, and near Pokrovsk and Velyka Novosilka, a key logistics route for the Ukrainian military.
Ukraine’s air force announced Saturday that the country had come under attack from ten Russian drones, of which eight were shot down over the Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, and Kherson regions. One drone returned to Russian-occupied territory, while the final drone disappeared from radar, often a sign of the use of electronic defenses.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said that 11 Ukrainian drones had been shot down by the country’s air defense systems. Both the mayor of Sochi, Andrey Proshunin, and the head of Russia’s Dagestan region, Sergey Melikov, both in Russia’s southwest, said that drones had been destroyed in their regions overnight. No casualties were reported.
On Friday, the Ukrainian president announced a number of changes to military leadership, saying that changes in personnel management were needed to improve the situation on the battlefield.
General Mykhailo Drapatyi, who led the defense of Kharkiv during Russia’s new offensive on Ukraine’s second-largest city this year, was appointed the new head of Ukraine’s Ground Forces. Oleh Apostol was named as the new Deputy Commander-in-Chief responsible for improving military training.
Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi also announced Friday that he would bolster units in Donetsk, Pokrovsk and Kurakhove with additional reserves, ammunition, weapons and military equipment.
